Production Order Items

Do you have to put the items that you use in Inventory if you are going to use the production order feature? I really don’t want to put all the materials we use into inventory, but really would love to use the production feature.

For example: Items A, B, and C make Final Product D. I would like Product D to be in inventory and tracked but not Items A, B, and C.

Yes, as the production order transfers from inventory to inventory.
If you don’t put the materials abc into inventory, what account are you using when they are purchased and how are you going to transfer them into Product D inventory

Would you recommend setting up an account just for Production Inventory? Is that possible? That way it does not mix with your sales Inventory.

Yes you could set up an account called Production Inventory, but how do you propose transferring Product D from Production Inventory into the Sales Inventory ?

Production orders does all the calculating/transferring for you in the background.
If having to re-enter the materials into each production order is of a concern, then use the clone feature, by clicking view instead of edit -